Premier Executive Coaching

Alexa

You take yourself to the gym ... so why not strengthen your leadership "muscles" too?

Coaching executives and aspiring leaders across many roles, industries and geographies over many years, I’ve compiled a list of 15 exercises to help you build your leadership muscles. For each one, take a look in the mirror of how you handle it now, what’s working, and what you want to to enhance through practice. Then go for it!

1. Make sure everyone in your enterprise knows where you are all heading, has a simple road map to get there, and "gets" why your goal(s) and direction are so important to you. If your people are vague on any of these elements, they are less likely to be at their best.

2. Value and reward your people’s excellence executing and delivering results AND their excellence collaborating with colleagues and “having each others' backs.” Expecting and rewarding both tasks and relationships makes a more sustainable organization.

3. Measure, monitor, and decrease continuously the amount of resistance (time, steps, and non-value-added activities needed) to implement a good idea. This “drag coefficient” exists in all organizations of two or more people, and lessening it is an ongoing way to maintain a strong flow of good leadership.

4. Delegating with context and clear expectations makes you and your team scalable. If you’re a founder, perfectionist or do-it-yourselfer, it’s key to work extra hard to guide others to do their best for you, rather than do things your way (or worse) yourself.

5. Give all reasonable feedback, candor, suggestions, and support to your people to help them succeed. With that, when someone continues to under-perform, it’s important to help them move on. Hanging on for too long is a common and avoidable leadership error.

6. Modest failures are inevitable, particularly when innovating. It’s important not to hide from them or shift blame, but to claim and transcend them, and to encourage the same from your team.

7. Innovation isn’t in a method, process, book, or workshop. It’s in your imagination and courage not to stick with the status quo, but challenge yourself and your team to do, build, and/or be something novel.

8. Making positive (and not negative) impacts on individuals, communities, natural resources, clients/customers/constituents, and economics is a sustainable way to lead.

9. Noticing what you’re avoiding or putting off/procrastinating is an underused source of self-correcting leadership. Periodically (don’t put it off) make a list of these things, and look for a pattern. You will likely encounter an important insight.

10. Candid feedback given and received is the breakfast of champions. Be candid with others, and ask for the same for yourself. Honesty is the key ingredient for sustaining success when things are going well, and the fuel for change when things are in trouble.

11. Positional authority—like that of a leader—can shut people down, and make them less likely to share ideas and suggestions. It’s important to create extra “permission” for people to share their thoughts and questions. In fact, the most junior people—those often doing the actual work—can see most clearly things that need change. Make it easy for them to connect to you.

12. Read the room, tailor your communication to your audience, and monitor your “transmit-to-receive” ratio. That is, how much of the time you’re with others you are talking versus listening. A good formula is that it should be 20 / 80 – that is, 80% asking/listening, and 20% talking. Even if you are at 50/50, you’re talking too much to lead effectively.

13. Shift unproductive conversations into the future to allow them to lead to useful solutions. “This is an important discussion – and now what are we going to do going forward?” is a great way to turn a frustrating go-nowhere discussion or meeting into a valuable outcome.

14. If your calendar is booked morning till evening every day, and you don’t have process-time to yourself, then you’re not leading effectively and sustainably. I ask my clients to block a few hours a few times a week, or 30 minutes per day, during which you’re not returning emails, IM-ing, doing phone calls. Simply sit and think, and maybe make a few notes.

15. Every person on your team who “cares” is worth their weight in gold. Hire and retain people who are fired up, and care about their own work. Diligence and willingness to learn are harder to find, and, when absent, more valuable than experience and credentials.

* * *

As you consider these 15 sets of leadership "muscles," think about your own enterprise, leadership approach, and your team. What could use some additional work outs this week? This month? This year?

Sharply focused teams tend to deliver results effectively. Those who take on too many things tend to melt down. Sounds simple, but in this distracted world, it's an issue in most organizations.

Is everyone on your team aware of your short list of key priorities? If I asked them, could they rattle them off? Are you actively monitoring for distractions and filtering them out?

Whether you’re running a Fortune 500 corporation, a pre-IPO start up, or a government agency, the simple formula of choose, transmit, and filter can make the difference between success and failure. In fact, many leaders who under-deliver on their goals or fail in their roles, do one or two of these things well, but not all three.

Fixing Failure to Choose

Here’s what I hear when I interview the leader’s colleagues: “She says “yes” too often, and we end up having 10 big priorities – that’s too many, and we lose focus.” And, “He changes priorities too frequently. If it’s a “shiny object,” then he wants to try it, and we’re left saying ‘What just happened?’”

Fix it: To deliver most effectively you first need to narrow down the universe of the “important” to a small number of key priorities that: a) are within your / your group’s capabilities, b) will directly propel your organization or initiative to its overall desired goals within a set time frame, and c) will address and remove key obstacles along the way. These priorities need to be likely to remain as important a year from now as they are today, and highly correlated to your organizational strategy.

Fixing Failure to Transmit Your Priorities

Sounds like: “He has a good idea of what he wants – or we think he does – but he’s very guarded about them, so we’re not at all sure where we’re heading and why.” And, “I know she’s got priorities, but I’m not totally sure what they are—she needs to let everyone know what they are, so we’re all on the same page.”

Fix it: To deliver most effectively once you have your handful of priorities, you now need to “transmit” them over and over -- and over again -- to all involved. Stay on message with them by returning to them in your future communication, social media, and other forums. Priorities are useless if they’re clear in your mind but aren’t drilled into the minds of the entire organization. Make your priorities their mantras.

Fixing Failure to Filter

Sounds like: “She’s an idea truck – every month she’ll dump off (or she’ll get from HQ) the next batch of big ideas, and we end up changing tactics and strategies too often.” And, “He needs to hold the line on our priorities when the board is asking questions about alternatives. Just because they ask a question or challenge a strategy doesn’t mean he should go change it.”

Fix it: Potential distractions to your key priorities are always trying to clot the arteries of your enterprise—it’s human (and organizational) nature. It’s critical that you actively monitor for them and filter them out. If the latest great idea or important initiative is not directly related to delivering one of your key priorities then it’s your time to shine with a creative “no thank you.”

Filtering out potential and actual distractions before they impact the people doing your work—having the “managerial courage” to say no to colleagues, higher-ups, or your board, whom you’re more inclined to please than disappoint—means you need to be creative to make sure they can absorb and agree to a “no.”

To that end, and to say no effectively, you need to be careful. Remember that it’s the task at hand AND the long term relationship with the person you’ve got to turn down. Provide them with plenty of context and rationale for the denial.

Sometimes a flat out high-context “no” is the right thing, particularly when you think they’ll absorb it well. In other cases—as in dealing with a more autocratic board or CEO, it often needs to be a “yes, that’s a great idea, and we have to find the right time for it – if we don’t want to interfere with the results we’ve shared with the marketplace, then it should be a next-year thing,” or a “yes, and here’s what would happen to our results if we did that,” or a “yes, and here’s what would be needed for that to happen.”

* * *

Keep your own (and your team’s) focus as clear as a bell: Choose, transmit and filter your way to achieve results, and your team will be more likely than not to stay on track and execute effectively.

A 75/25 balance between a positive and negative outlook is ideal, according to Emotional Intelligence experts -- thus answering the quesiton once and for all if it's best our glass is half empty or half full. 3/4 full works best.

Yet the daily avalanche of wireless and live workplace interactions supports the more half empty, negative outlook. In fact, problems and demands are so dominant that positive messages can sound weird. You’re much more likely to hear “What’s the problem?” than “What’s going well here?”

From my work with many executives, I know that when you strike the right balance between a positive and negative outlook you lead more skillfully and live a better life, and help others do the same. It’s not magic: By resetting to 75+/25- each day, you enable engagement, creativity, good health, and reduce stress.

Example: Yesterday, while waiting in the check in line for a flight, I noticed a guy standing in front of a ticket agent for at least 20 minutes. I studied his agent’s face: the years of dealing with people’s negativity showed, and my heart went out to her.

As I came up to the kiosk next to him, she got off the phone, and gave him the bad news that he wasn’t getting home until tomorrow. I expected his wrath, typical traveler behavior, and, much to my (and likely her) surprise, he said, “Jean, thank you. You’ve been patient and thoughtful getting me rebooked, and I know it’s not easy. You’re a gem.” She beamed. Her life was slightly better in that moment. Now imagine many of these moments every day, and how that would change Jean’s life—she would even look different.

We’ve all heard about the “power of positive thinking,” but flick on the news, and you’ll see the world seems to prefer tuning in to the negative most of the time. Where’s the good stuff?

The answer: it’s everywhere. It’s free of charge, too. It just requires (at first) some effort to look for it, find it, and call it. Use your connectivity to send a positive message, tell someone you appreciate, admire, or commend something they did, or what they bring to the table.

At the start of each day, remind yourself (a sticky note on your computer?) to set your balance at 75+/25- and find the good. Don’t worry, the world will still deliver struggle and pain, and I’m not suggesting you ignore that -- you can still access the 25- whenever you need it, but let’s make it the exception and not the rule.

“I am convinced that nothing we do is more important than hiring and developing people. At the end of the day, you bet on people, not on strategies.” -Lawrence Bossidy, former COO of GE.

Hiring the right person can be a challenge.

Beyond realizing you need to add someone to your team, working with HR on a great job description, and sourcing great candidates, hiring well means doing interviews that result in insights about each candidate. That begins with good questions that increase the likelihood you'll get some type of x-ray of the person – showing more of them than they are likely to want you to see.

Most aren't purposely trying to hide anything -- yet not unlike a first date, preparation, advice and nerves can lead someone with good intentions to try and show you only their best behavior and most positive energy. That makes getting a clear picture a bit tough. If everyone walked into interviews calmly saying to themselves, “Let me just be myself and if it’s a fit, then great, and if not, well, then ok,” then more hires would fit well.

What’s very important, many think, is to have a collaborative hiring process (not just rely on your own opinions and interviews), and select for highly self-motivated people and passion (in addition to the right experience and skills), then train the rest.

“Look for people who will aim for the remarkable, who will not settle for the routine." -David Ogilvy

There are many ideas for interview questions, and regardless if you like my list, you should search the web for "Great Interview Questions" and take in several lists.

Below are 12 questions I’ve come up with over the years – intended to avoid the predictable, create the highest likelihood for that x-ray to happen, ferret out the remarkable, and include elements of real-world behavioral interviewing (e.g., what they faced in the past, what they did, and what was the outcome) that I think are important.

My questions should be considered in addition to the skills and experience questions you have about their specific background. You should of course make these your own: Ask questions that “fit” the role, need, and your own style; in short, take what you can use from my list, below, and the other lists you find, and then come up with your own.

1. What’s the most important thing someone who wants to get to know you quickly should ask you? (Once they answer that, make sure to then ask them their own question.)

2. What’s an example of something you did in the last 12 months you would characterize as remarkable – what was the situation, what did you do, and what was the outcome?

3. If your most recent manager / boss / client (choose one) were in the room with us now, and I were to ask him or her what you most needed to work on in your own professional development in the year ahead, what would he or she say?

4. What was the biggest challenge at work you had to take on that didn’t end up the way you had hoped it would – explain the situation, what you did about it, and what was the outcome?

5. Do you tend to do better work at crunch time, or well in advance of a deadline? (You can say that both happen, but if given the choice, some people prefer to work better under a tight deadline, and others work better with plenty of time – both are fine, which do they prefer, if they had their druthers?)

6. What’s an example of something you took on to learn in your own professional development in the last 12 months – a class or course, an area of self-study, etc. What interested you about it, what did you learn, and how are you using it today?

7. Looking back over the years on your resume, when you think about the moves you’ve made from one type of job to another, or one company to another, what’s been the most important factor in propelling you to make the move?

8. Think about a job or project when you were at your absolute best. What was it about that situation that got you fired up?

9. Now think about a time when you were coasting, or simply not at your best at work. Based on that, what can tend to de-motivate you, or get you feeling less fired up in your work?

10. If you could design the ideal role for yourself what would it be and why?

11. If you could design your ideal boss or manager, what would it be about them you’d respect the most?

12. Is there anything I haven’t asked you that if we were to stop now, you’d leave feeling like we missed something important about you?

Of course it’s always good to turn the tables and ask what questions they have, and to write those questions down – what they ask – and what they don’t ask – both say a lot about them.

Troubling and not uncommon is the exec or leader who “comes across so confident” and “so great” and who lacks the substance needed to guide others toward a collective good.

The data are overwhelming that from a career perspective, professionals are rewarded more on confidence and appearance than substance. Whether we’ve been bedazzled in the interview process and hired a dud, or seen someone with plenty of swagger fail their way to top jobs, it’s worth noticing and addressing confidence-bias in ourselves and others.

The heavy recent emphasis on confidence in executive leadership (e.g., “Gravitas” or “Executive Presence”), including my own articles on these topics, must be balanced with assessing and ensuring broader strengths in our leaders: subject knowledge, vision, critical thinking, emotional intelligence, self-awareness, results-orientation, and integrity.

When considering this confidence-without-substance problem, finding examples in the political arena is like shooting fish in a barrel. How is it that so many elected officials speak with such conviction and swagger, yet so little happens, and yet they are returned to office again and again?

So few people have deep and enduring confidence, and (particularly in a crisis) so many are drawn to it, that it’s easy to be misled by it.

To avoid this, it’s incumbent on those of us in positions to select, support, hire, promote, and even vote for leaders not to be overly enchanted or swayed by calm confidence when other qualities are lacking – we must avoid confusing swagger with substance or integrity.

If we keep clear about the distinction between confidence and substance, and promote equally the value of the latter, then we increase the likelihood that the world will continue to evolve into something better.

Work that works for you -- and those you love -- is a matter of selection, tenacity and patience rather than luck. Find the intersection of the following five circles, keeping in mind the three outside factors. Select well, stick with it, and be patient. Over time, don't settle for less.

Every time I start coaching someone, I interview 8-12 of their colleagues. They list for me real-life strengths and development areas. Over 10 years, I've collected thousands, and recently analyzed them to look for common themes. Here's what you need to know:

They fell into four themes

52 of them appeared over and over, in one form or another

Think of it as kind of a tried-and-tested "menu" -- behaviors and skills you should consider working on and developing, to learn, work, and lead others in better and stronger ways. Here they are in detail:

Theme 1: Execute and Deliver

Choose--Pick and communicate a handful of things needed to achieve results, and actively manage out distractions. Apply 80/20 rule

Structure--Build and evolve the organization, its structures, systems, administrative, and other frameworks for agility and leanness

Deploy--Recruit, assign, and retain capable people who care deeply

Empower--Delegate excellently, offering full context and giving the leeway/authority for the “how”

Ask/listen--Manage transmit/receive ratio. Seek out and listen to people at all levels, fostering candor needed for speed of execution and delivery. Learn all areas to right level of detail

Resolve--Fix / resolve conflicts with colleagues, and among them, proactively and promptly, and/or find then maintain a level of appropriately productive tension

Network--Identify, invest in, and evolve networks with others both internally and externally

Receive--Ask and listen versus direct or tell

Collaborate--Work effectively with others toward own (and shared) goals. Make reasonable offers to and requests from others. Request and offer help in balance. Seek consensus where appropriate. Show others reciprocity

Communicate--Speak and write well. Be kind, candid, reachable and responsive in timely ways. Match well audience with communication method and message. Know when to stay silent

Be at ease--Be approachable, comfortable to talk to, and mindful of your impact on others. Attract, rather than repel, ideas. Avoid angry outbursts, loss of composure

Fit in or change culture--Operate within org norms, or influence to change them

Build a brand and narrative--Develop a known “brand” / signature that’s distinctive and authentic

Theme 4: Influence

Read the room--Assess unspoken and obvious needs of others in real time, and tailor communication accordingly

Be confident--Be calm and inspire calm in others. Know ones’ value is 100% no matter who else is in the room. Avoid self-doubt or self-criticism. Avoid scripting / over-reliance on visual aids

Show savvy--Know when to inquire, assert, and stay silent. Keep track of ones’ impact on others, adjust accordingly

Be bold--Show one can participate in big picture(s) outside of immediate wheel house with compelling ideas and insights

Be polished--Have a polished presence: Dress a level up, within org norms. Grooming and appearance consistent with culture

Building executive presence (EP) is a hot topic from cubicle to corner office. A dash of swagger and reading the room when face to face are crucial; but how do you demonstrate EP on email? After all, the majority of our workaday communication involves hitting SEND. EP-busting email habits are rampant, according to my experience as an executive coach.

Yet with a few simple practices, and by breaking a few habits, you can use email as an instrument of greater influence.

Coaching Tips

Here’s a technique that works for my clients. When was the last time you re-read older sent email for the sake of self-improvement? Maybe never? Try this: Carefully select a sample of, say, 20 of your sent emails. Make sure they represent both smooth and stressful times, and a spectrum of people. As you carefully reread your sample, keep the following tips in mind:

1. Don’t blow off your subject line

Take the time to write a subject line that gets the correct attention and priority. Your email lands on long lists, and your most important recipients don’t have time to click more deeply into your meaning. Be creatively concise on the headline and, if appropriate, time frame. “Project X Phase 2 Needs Your Approval by 5/15” works better than “Project X Update.”

2. Don’t bury the lead

Once you have their attention with your effective subject line, if it takes more than a sentence or two to decipher importance and required action, you’ve buried the lead, and your email EP along with it. Why they should care and what you want from them should be right up front.

3. Be brief--very brief

If you need to write more than a few paragraphs, you’ve missed a conversation that needs to happen. Keep your emails short and sweet. If you can’t, then start an IM, pick up the phone, or go face to face.

4. Don’t confuse an email chain with a conversation

A string of emails and replies shouldn’t be considered a substitute for a conversation, brainstorming session, or a decision-making process. It’s a series of “tells” with varying lag times that often lead to unnecessary churn. Voice to voice, face to face, and IM are much better forums for important interactions.

5. Don’t use email to confront, vent or process

Lasting EP problems spring from this mistake. As a therapist might say, “Write the letter and don’t send it.” Email isn’t the place for processing an issue, venting, or confronting. Since email subtracts nuance and body language needed for deeper understanding, it makes thorny issues thornier.

6. Follow the New York Times rule

You’ve heard this one before--now believe it: Email is barely communication. It’s certainly not a forum for risky disclosure. As your General Counsel should say: Don’t put anything in email today you wouldn’t want to read in the New York Times tomorrow. All emails are or can be read by others.

7. Check your grammar, spelling and avoid text-speak in emails

EP degrades with poor quality communication. Check your spelling. Read it out loud. Look for words spelled correctly but in the wrong place, such as “here” versus “hear” or “affect” versus “effect” or “your” versus “you’re.” Using text-speak like “ure” and “btw” and “LOL,” even when sending from your smartphone, degrades your EP. Double-check these before sending.

8. Read the message you received carefully before sending your reply

Too many people scan and reply in a rush, and miss the point. Before replying to a message, read it twice. Think. Prioritize. THEN BEFORE SENDING, read the original email and your reply together. If you don’t have time for that, wait until you do, or connect with the recipient by another method.

9. Don’t be lazy about forwarding emails

We’ve all forwarded emails without double-checking what lurks below, earlier in the chain. Please scroll all the way down, and read the full chain. Delete irrelevant, outdated, or recipient-inappropriate stuff.

10. Check and double-check recipients

Avoid sending the wrong thing to the wrong person. Before clicking SEND, check and double-check your recipients. This may seem obvious, but is a step too often overlooked.

11. Be calm about response time

When you send follow-up emails too shortly following the original (e.g., “did you have a chance to review my email from earlier today?”) you’re degrading your EP, not to mention being an e-stalker. If you’re going to need a response that quickly, then don’t use email in the first place.

* * *

As suggested above, self-test a sample of your previous sent email from time to time. What do you need to change? Answer that, and you can make email a vehicle to enhance, rather than hinder, your communication, influence, and build your own EP.

We all have perfectly good intentions to take those important yet difficult actions. We aren’t intentionally avoiding them, yet we let ourselves off the hook, one more day at a time, and those days add up to real delays:

“I know I need to do more to deal with that performance problem.”

“I know I need to finish that business plan and get it circulated.”

“I know I need to get on the road and connect with our major clients.”

I hear things like this from high performing and high potential clients alike. As a coach, I tend to ask three questions:

1. What important yet delayed actions do you need to address? That is, what is it high time that you do, that you think about often, yet aren’t doing?

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a leader who, like Mahatma Gandhi before him, and Nelson Mandela after him, showed us the way from weakness and division to strength in unity.

He challenged and inspired us to reach deeper within ourselves, despite ourselves, for our best, which sometimes is, simply, better than yesterday. His power endures because it's rooted in the courage to hold hope and faith in each other's potential: "knowing" we can do it ... we can be better every day, each in our own way.

On this, the U.S. holiday celebrating his life and legacy, I present you with ten of his extraordinary thoughts on leadership:

"A genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus but a molder of consensus."

"I am not interested in power for power's sake, but I'm interested in power that is moral, that is right and that is good."

"All men are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality."

"Life's most persistent and urgent question is, 'What are you doing for others?'"

"The time is always right to do the right thing."

"We must use time creatively."

"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter."

"The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically."

"Never succumb to the temptation of bitterness."

"The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy"